“This is new timber, not easily kindled,” Hadding answered. “But they much outnumber us. Never will we cut a way free through them. We can only hold fast where we are. Maybe something will happen before we’ve all fallen.”

He went among his men, arraying them. Those who had kept the doors, without byrnies, were dead or dying. However, they had bought time for the rest, who now drove the foe back from those narrow spans. “Fight till you grow weary,” Hadding bade them. “Then step aside and let a fresh man take your place while you catch your breath.”

Himself he warded the front door longer at a time than any other. Two guards died beside him, two more at once bestrode their bodies. Still his sword crashed, still it bit.

Yet the Danes were inside. The fires died down. Whatever wood the cowering servants might have fetched was elsewhere. Men groped more and more blind. At length they could not tell how their oath-brothers fared at the doorways. They fell over each other’s feet, trying to get to where they could do some good.

The onslaught broke through.

Warriors churned about in the murk, chopped and stabbed at shadows, shouting war-cries for their fellows to know them. “Dane-Hadding1” yelled Svein as a black blur rose before him. “Dane-Hadding,” panted the unknown one. Svein lowered his sword. An ax struck him.

It was no longer a battle where men stood side by side. It was a maelstrom, everybody sightless and alone. Surely friend often smote friend and let a foe go by. Uffi had more men to spend than did Hadding.

He, though, fosterling of jotuns in wilderness, kenned every sound and knew whence it came. He snuffed the air and felt it stir to every movement around him. He prowled the gloom like a lynx, killing and killing.

He could not save his followers. Slowly the fight ebbed away. Men stumbled about croaking their calls, fewer and fewer, until no more calls were Danish. The wounded gasped underfoot. The stench of death lay heavy. Hadding stole over blood-wet rushes and clay, across bodies writhing or still, toward the rear door. Two men kept watch at it. Starlight barely touched their helmets. Hadding pounced from the inner night. Right, left his sword whined. They fell, half-beheaded. An outcry arose at the noise, but by then he was gone.

The sky stood black, the land stretched dim. He crouched and wove a snake’s way off to the woods. They would never track him there.

But it was far to Scania. When they did not find him dead in the morning, the hunt would go forth across the kingdom. He would need all his craft, hiding by day, faring by night, living off roots, herbs, frogs, lemmings, maggots, and whatever else he could take. That too was something he meant to avenge on Uffi. First and foremost, though, were his housecarles, slain in the dark.

XXV